The School of Weird Facts

Back in 1989, Coppin State College in Baltimore started a program designed to teach kids critical thinking skills -- how to "formulate meaningful questions, identify pertinent data and determine fallacies and biases." It did this by having the kids examine and discuss "weird facts" and weird news stories. Perhaps Chuck's work was on the curriculum. (link: Google News)

The picture shows teacher Tom Payne teaching the kids some weird facts. I don't know what happened to the program. It doesn't seem to exist anymore. In its place, we should try to make Weird Universe mandatory reading in all high schools.

Who We Are
Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 27, 2012
Category: School

Comments

They seem to be getting their weird facts from National Geographic and what appears to be children's books. We certainly can do better than that! I hope they were reading Chuck too.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 02/27/12 at 11:53 AM

Teaching the kids "weird facts" has become the standard rather than a specialized program. That's why it doesn't seem to exist anymore. It's the 3 R's that you will have a hard time finding.

Posted by Todd on 02/27/12 at 01:55 PM

Weird Universe mandatory reading in all high schools as well as Guiness book of records. And The Far Side.

Posted by daniel on 02/28/12 at 03:32 AM

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